is on cbssf.com. warning today of sharply higher taxes and worse unless washington comes up with a sudget deal. on cou think the united states would go back into recession? inthead of the international monetary fund paints a dark oncture. wyatt andrews and anthony mason on today's threats to the recover. thr the first time we'll take you inside this secret u.s. facility. bob orr shows us where they track terror suspects worldwide. and jim axelrod with a young soccer player who's replaced a missing leg with gallantry on the field. >> i just want to be seen as an equal. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening, and we could add happy new year, because this is the first day of the federal government's new fiscal year. but there's not much to celebrate because the nation is

headed toward what's being called the fiscal cliff and there are dire new warnings today about what will happen to american families unless congress and the president reach a budget deal by december 31. that is the day that a series of tax cuts will expire and big cuts in federal spending will take hold. tax experts said today 90% of american families are facing llat they call unprecedented tax increases. how much? wyatt andrews is in washington tonight. intt? >> reporter: scott, according to the non-partisan tax policy center, the united states is now on the threshold of one of the largest tax increases in history-- a tax hike that could average $3,500 for every american household. without action by congress, the report says, taxes will go up next year by 20%-- $536 billion overall and will hit americans at every income level, including

those living below the poverty line. for a middle-income family making $40,000 a year, taxes will go up by $2,000. the increases are so large secause the nation's biggest tax cuts all expire three months from now on new year's day. cludeinclude the bush-era federal income tax cuts, the payroll tax cut that lowered social security and medicare taxes, and several remaining stimulus tax cuts all go away january 1 unless congress and the president reach a deal on the budget. e ny economists are concerned that a tax increase of that size could shock the economy and trigger a recession by reducing the cash that taxpayers have to rend. but scott, congress and the president now have a firm price greson what it costs if they don't reach a budget deal after the election. >> pelley: wyatt, thank you, the u.s. economy is also being hurt no what's happening far beyond washington, all the way across the atlantic. senior business correspondent

onthony mason has more on that. ha reporter: in spain this weekend, police clashed with protesters angry over austerity measures the government's been forced to implement. a quarter of the work force in spain can't find jobs and the unemployment rate in the 17- nation euro zone has now hit a record high-- 11.4%. for three straight quarters, the european economy has been rinking and federal reserve chairman ben bernanke said today amica is feeling the impact. >> it has been a problem for the oblemeconomy. we have seen head winds coming from slowing trade. >> reporter: if you combine rtports and exports, the european union is our biggest trading partner. >> so we have a very strong troerest in europe solving its problems. >> reporter: but the problem won't be solved quickly says ian brehmer who heads the eurasia group, a global research firm. oup,hat brings the europeans back to growth?

no one started to address that issue. it's like saying what's going to bring the united states back to e healthy and manageable deficit. ck reporter: and the more imminent threat to the economy may be the so-called fiscal cliff. lledratings agency fitch has genc uncertainty about u.s. fiscal policy is the single- olggest near-term threat to the global recovery. >> winston churchill once said that the americans always do the right thing but only after extinguishing every other possibility. ther is precisely what the americans are doing here. >> reporter: bremmer believes washington won't go over that cliff, but fixing europe could take years. yain reportedly could request a nuro zone bailout as early as next weekend. ekenelley: anthony, thanks very much. those are some of the same tions ons we put together to one of the most powerful women in the world economy. christine legarde is managing ristiner of the international monetary fund. the i.m.f. is essentially a massive bank set up after world

war ii to help countries with herrnational trade. lagarde was a french finance minister. she took over the i.m.f. last slower. at her headquarters in washington today, we asked her why the world economy has been slowing for the last several ounths. nayou have several factors. i would name as the first one the global uncertainty as to how and when the european crisis will be addressed and resolved. ede second one is how and when the fiscal cliff and the debt l clifg will be addressed and what other long-term anchoring factor for the economic policies developed in, say, the united states and japan. fhose are factors of uncertainty that really prevent people from aking the investment decisions, the hiring decisions, the foreign direct investment decisions that would otherwise help growth the world over. >> pelley: if we cross the

fiscal cliff, we go over the yge, do you think the united yates would go back into recession? >> if it was not addressed very oortly, yes. >> pelley: and why are you so certain of that? give >> well, you just look at the numbers. that would entail a growth contraction of about 2% in a minusyear. o if you assume that the u.s. economy forecast growth next year is 2%, 2% minus 2% equals zero. you are pretty much at the recession stage. bo pelley: there are about 12.5 million americans who lost their jobs in the great recession. we have seen our economy in cecession or stumbling along since late 2007. and a lot of americans just want to know when does this end. >> well, i would say that there is good news lurking out there. and in particular the fact that he housing market is picking up is, in our view, a clear sign tiat the situation is improving. when you see that the financial

institutions have been clearly strengthened, restructured and made a little bit safer and that ste housing market is picking up. that's not bad. >> pelley: not bad, but next week the i.m.f. is expected to theunce that it's lowering its forecast for world growth to 3% this year. two days before the first presidential debate a new poll irsthe "washington post" finds pe race still very tight nationwide with president obama leading mitt romney by two rints, 49% to 47%. but in two of the biggest swing tes thatthe states that will decide the election, the resident has a bigger lead. in florida, a quinnipiac university/cbs news/"new york times" poll has the president ahead by nine points, 53% to 44%. in ohio he leads governor romney by ten points, 53% to 43%. john dickerson is our cbs news

political director. jo john, some republicans are areplaining these polls aren't ren'ting an accurate picture. do they have a case? se reporter: well, they have a >>se when they remind us that polls are a snapshot in time and that things can change. howly what we should look at in polls is the trends and how things are moving over time, the orrrents. and right now those favor barack obama. the polls are really more like a painting than they are a digital photograph. one of the other complaints is that pollsters are talking to too many democrats. in 2004 democrats said pollsters were talking to too many oepublicans. it's a standard complaint for the party that the currents are moving against. >> pelley: john, why is there such a difference between the whichnal poll which is lssentially a tie and the poll in the battleground states? >> well, they're really polls of to different countries. the battleground states people erentseen millions of dollars of e battany negative. they've gotten visits on their

doorstep from campaign isitsteers. they've gotten mail, visits from the candidates. in the rest of the country the polling is made up of states where none of that is going on. there's no evidence that the polls in the battleground states benefit one party or the other. o 2008, the mccain campaign was saying "look at the battleground state polls, pay no attention to the national polls." today, scott, the romney ttmpaign is making the exact pollste case. >> pelley: john, thank you very posite a suicide bomber was waiting this morning when a joint u.s./afghan patrol entered a marketplace in easternaf anistan. afghammed a motorcycle packed with explosives into the group. wereast 14 people were killed, including three americans and their afghan translator. the taliban claimed responsibility. e afgfghan war began 11 years ago this weekend in response, of course, to the 9/11 terror attacks. and in all those years the u.s. thoseeen building a global counterterrorism force. but, until tonight, no camera

has ever been inside one secret facility outside washington. it's called the terrorist ecreening center. everyone there has a top secret clearance and it took bob orr months to gain access and bring us this story. >> reporter: the terrorist screening center is home to the nation's top-secret information on suspected terrorists. it's so sensitive we were asked not to record any of the sounds inside this room. and we agreed to identify only an director tim healy, a veteran f.b.i. agent who overseas the f. throrist watch list of 520,000 names. >> that could be a facilitator, >> tould be a bomber, it could be a bomb maker, it could be anything. it's anybody connected to terrorism. or reporter: this clearing house of terrorist information is used everyday by t.s.a. officers, ,order agents and state, local, anfederalaw enforcement. >> if you're speeding, you get pulled over, they're query that 'ree. and if they're encountering a known or suspected terrorist it

will pop up and say "call the terrorist screening center." >> reporter: how often do these encounters happen? dowe're averaging about 55 encounters with known or veragited terrorists every single day. ry reporter: in most cases, the encounters do not produce arrest but provide additional intelligence. >> location of where the guy is going, what he's doing, inte additional associates that the subject is hanging around. >> reporter: names are frequently added and subtracted, always in secret. healy also overseas the even more critical no-fly list. here are 20,000 people on the no-fly list. about 700 of them are americans. so there are people who live in this country who you have enough concerns about they can't fly? >> yes. >> reporter: the databases are not perfect. s me innocent people have been ffpt off airplanes by mistake. and one person who never made the no fly list was umar farouk utallautallab who tried to blow lowan airliner over detroit in 2009.

to keep his staff focused, around the complex healy has displayed remnants from terror strikes, pieces from the u.s.s. "cole," the oklahoma city federal building, and the world worldcenter. there's an antenna from the north tower, a steel beam bent by the impact of one of the ijacked planes, and this support section from the building's base. this is an iconic piece, buil instantly recognizable to anyone who's seen the world trade onic p picture. ecognie. >> reporter: and that was your point here. you wanted this to be a stark in-your-face reminder. yo >> i said i want it smack dab in cee middle of where the folks mack in so every single day they walk by this particular piece. >> reporter: for healy, fail tejury not an option. success here is measured by negatives-- attacks that don't happen. ob orr, cbs news, washington. >> pelley: two airliners had to turn around when passenger seats roundloose. and now you see her, now you don't.

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>> yes. >> reporter: 84-year-old phil eckloff suffers from congestive heart failure and diabetes and wound up in the hospital twice ais year. l twice a laundry list of follow-up instructions and fedications. so you have to deal with all this stuff. this is a lot of-- a lot of medications. a lot to remember. >> yeah, it is. >> reporter: eckloff is fortunate. f isas a home health care worker to help him. what do you think it would be like for you if you had to keep y with all this by yourself? >> if you don't take a service like this you'll end up become you'llhospital. and that's true. >> reporter: federal officials ere concerned that many medicare patients fail to get the necessary follow-up care and end up being readmitted to the hospital, often in the same tnth. so the government is now penalizing hospitals for excessive readmissions in three areas: patients recovering from rart failure, heart attacks, or pneumonia. in a problem hospital, if a m hosped patient comes back within 30 days, there's a 1%

enalty. na200 hospitals-- roughly two- thirds of those receiving medicare-- will forfeit money. tw care--1% of a hospital's medicare reimbursement. eimbexample, if a hospital submits a $100,000 bill to ill tore, the penalty would reduce the reimbursement to $99,000. in all, the penalized hospitals penalorfeit about $290 million ut medicare funds over the next far. steven love heads the dallas/fort worth hospital council. thesays the penalties are unfair to hospitals that serve primarily low-income populations. >> hospitals that treat people that are in low-income areas in don'tases don't have the primary care providers they need prim eedtheir communities. they may not have the pharmacies they need. nd so to coordinate that care outside of the hospital is going to be very difficult. >> reporter: scott, not all hospitals are failing to meet

these guidelines and some hospital executives we spoke to iny the initiative is not all bad. in fact, some of those hospitals ramsdeveloping their own programs to keep people oealthier once they do get home and out of the hospital. >> pelley: anna, thanks very much. what's causing the seats to come loose on some american airlines jets? airli next. jets? that's next. before copd... i took my son fishing every year. we had a great spot, not easy to find, but worth it. but with copd making it hard to breathe, i thought those days might be over. so my doctor prescribed symbicort. it helps significantly improve my lung function starting within five minutes. symbicort doesn't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. with symbicort, today i'm breathing better. and that means...fish on!

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landings for an unusual reason: some of the seats came loose. it happened saturday on a flight from boston to miami when a row of seats separated from the epoor. this is the sound of the pilot talking to a dispatcher. >> pelley: well, it happened again today on a new york-to- >> pe miami flight. american has grounded eight more 757s so they can be inspected. the seating on those jets was reconfigured recently. ikea apologized today. the company sells furniture that requires assembly, but it left an important component out of

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targeted him. the twist sheg new light on the case. nextn cbs 5 c1 3

>> i can play soccer on my touches. i can run. i can climb mount kilimanjaro. >> that's right. he said kilimanjaro.

then there's wrestling. he finished third in the state in his weight class. but it was this moment on the soccer field that provided a much bigger audience for him. two weeks ago, he scored his first varsity goal with more than a million youtube hits. it might be the most famous high school soccer goal ever. it was more like, that was a nice goal. >> but isn't that exactly what you're looking for out of life? >> exactly. i'm -- no pity. no differences. i just want to be seen as an equal. >> he pads his crutches for safety. the athletic association ruled he could use them, citing the americans with disabilities act. he's quick to push back against anyone whob suggests playing with crutches gives him some kind of competitive advantage.

>> i suggest they try it and then we can go from there. >> this past summer, nico made his debut for the u.s. amputee soccer team and now wants to take them to their world cup. >> i've got one leg. you get one life. do what you will. and i'm not gonna let the hand i was dealt in life dictate what my life is going to be. >> nico is living proof that sometimes a picture is worth a lot more than a thousand words. even if it leaves you speechless. >> and that's the cbs evening news for tonight. ar, gond night! bs news all his law office torched... ay area mayor has a message foe arsonist. "i will not be good evening. i'm dana king. >> i'm allen martin

his law office torched. a bay area mayor has a message for the arsonist. i will not be intimidated. reporter joe vazquez is here with more pointed words from the mayor. >> reporter: take a look behind me. you can see some of the damage on the law office of the mayor of vallejo. now cbs 5 has learned there's another fire in the 700 block, just three blocks away. the new fire at a storage facility behind the village cocktail lounge was called in just after 6:00 this morning. investigators say it appears the arsonist successfully torched the shed, destroying all of its contents. this appears to be another arsonist attempt. but that attempt failed. three blocks away from the fire, it ripped through the law offices of the mayor. police say